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Colombia, the fastest growing country in Latin America, continues to struggle with productivity. Both labor productivity and total factor productivity have been low for the past decade, despite economic growth of 4.7% annually. Many factors contribute—everything from infrastructure, to banking, to informality. President Santos, one year into his second term, is well aware of these difficulties and has put in place new policies to mitigate them. His focus, however, is on peace negotiations with the FARC—a possible settlement of the 50-year struggle which itself would significantly impact productivity.

American Electric Power, like most utilities in the USA, is currently exposed to distributed generation and the problem of net-metering. Solar installations in particular have been heavily subsidized, by the state and by regulation, which does not allow grid operators to to recover their fixed costs. This results in stranded assets and cross-subsidies from poor to rich.

In January 2012, the government of India faced significant challenges to achieving three key objectives of high growth, inclusive development, and improved governance. The economy was experiencing a growth slowdown, persistently high inflation, and infrastructure and energy deficits. Policy reforms were hampered by several recent corruption scandals, widespread citizen protests against corruption, and disagreements with coalition partners. Could India make the right decisions needed to lift hundreds of millions of citizens out of poverty?